Part of Hegarty's Tigers Realm Group based in Melbourne, Tigers Realm Coal raised $A37.5 million in 2011 as one of the biggest Australian floats of that year.

The company is making good progress in Russia, completing a prefeasibility study for Amaam North.

But as Hegarty puts it, "another of the Tiger cubs is stirring".

Speaking at the Resources Rising Stars conference this week, Hegarty said Tigers Realm Metals was coming out from under the shadows of its listed sister company.

"It's coming to the market sometime soon," he said.

Hegarty didn't indicate where the company would list but he did point out that Hong Kong was the initial public offering capital of the world.

The focus for the metals arm is the Beutong project in Aceh, Indonesia.

Last year, the company announced a maiden resource for the project of 505 million tonnes at 0.59% copper equivalent, using a 0.3% copper cut-off, which equates to 3Mt contained copper equivalent, or 2.4Mt copper, 2.1 million ounces of gold, 20Moz silver and 137 million pounds of molybdenum.

The resource includes a higher grade component of 153Mt at 0.76% copper equivalent.

"It's a very good orebody," Hegarty said.

Tigers Realm Metals owns 40% of the deposit but can earn 80% through a joint venture with a private Indonesian company.

Hegarty is no stranger to Indonesia, through his role as executive vice chairman of Hong Kong-listed G-Resources Group, which owns the Martabe gold-silver mine.

And while he acknowledges it took twice as long and double the money to build Martabe, the mine is running smoothly and G-Resources last week announced a maiden profit of $US29 million.

Hegarty believes strongly in the Asia-Pacific region, saying only 5% of the world's exploration budget is directed there.

He is extremely bullish on copper, or "red gold" as he calls it, as well as gold.

"I've always loved gold," Hegarty said.

"You can never have enough gold."